Mortgage technology

Speaking to attendees of the Fourth Annual Mortgage EC conference in Las Vegas, ABN Amro's Garth Graham said waiting for HUD to approve mortgage reforms may be unwise because once consumers learn they can get a one-fee mortgage they will demand it no matter how long the HUD reform takes.Mr. Graham said the one-fee mortgage that ABN Amro's Mortgage.com launched in January 2001 has chalked up 70,000 loans funded and "combined customer demand for simplicity with ABN's desire to make it simple." The Guaranteed Mortgage Package proposed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development will simply mandate what borrowers are already flocking to get. Mr. Graham said consumer adoption of the Internet has simply accelerated that process. One effect of that has been expanded use of pricing engines and closing cost engines that will enable consumers to know the all-in price at the point of sale.

GMAC Residential Funding Corp., Minneapolis, has announced that it has enabled 1st National Bank of Arizona to increase loan production by 50% after six months using a customized version of the GMAC-RFC Assetwise decision engine.Over that period 1st National, a leading alternative-A lender, used the customized system, dubbed Avenue in its private-label version, to increase its loan volume from $200 million to $300 million between March and August 2002. "Our monthly volume has climbed to $300 million, and we expect to exceed $400 million per month in 2003,” said 1st National president Jeff Walton. “Plus, our pull-through rate climbed from about 30% to nearly 48% in the past few months." GMAC-RFC reports similar results with the customized Assetwise system it developed for its wholly owned subsidiary Homecomings Financial, which used its Internet-based Assetwise Direct system to chalk up $5.4 billion in mortgages in the first half of 2002, an 80% increase over the same period in 2001. The company can be found online at http://www.gmacrfc.com.

CapitalThinking, a New York-based application software company, has inked a deal with Fannie Mae under which the latter will use the company's Deal Management Software as the core processing engine for its multibillion-dollar, low income housing equity investments.Fannie Mae is the largest purchaser of low-income housing tax credits in the country, typically through a nationwide network of approved syndicators. Fannie will use the platform to provide a seamless electronic flow of transactional data and documentation from syndicators through the Fannie Mae LIHTC acquisition approval chain. A Web-based software platform, DMS supports a wide range of financial asset underwriting and management activities. The development work required to support Fannie's $6.5 billion LIHTC equity program began last month. CapitalThinking says Phase I will be released in the second quarter of 2003. CapitalThinking can be found online at http://www.capitalthinking.com.

Georgia Senate Majority Leader Mitch Seabaugh has invited Dr. Vincent Terry, president of the National Minority Mortgage Bankers Association, to attend a meeting Dec. 5 with other mortgage industry participants to discuss the Georgia Fair Lending Act.The NMMBA has filed a lawsuit in the state supreme court against Georgia's Department of Banking and Finance and its commissioner, David. G. Sorrell, in an effort to overturn the legislation. The trade group is lobbying its members to file affidavits with the court showing that minority borrowers are being denied credit under the new state law in cases where credit would not have been denied before. The organization's website address is http://www.nmmbainc.org.

In a major strategic bid to offer one-stop shopping, Freddie Mac has announced the launch of LoanProspector.com.The site will enable mortgage lenders and brokers to use the same data submitted to LP to be used to order appraisals, flood determinations, title products, and property surveys. Having done that, mortgage lenders and brokers can use the LoanProspector.com site to check order status in real time and receive reports. As of Dec. 8, all customers using Loan Prospector on the Internet will automatically be directed to the new loanprospector.com website. Freddie Mac characterized the launch of the new site and the inclusion of vendor services as a major strategic commitment to electronic mortgages, not merely a technology upgrade. Over the next two years, Freddie said the website will offer online pricing, electronic closing, and access to secondary market funding services and to the Loan Prospector suite of tools. Freddie Mac can be found online at http://www.freddiemac.com.

NetUpdate, Redmond, Wash., has integrated technology from Sollen Technologies, Dallas, into its newly released Originator Pro Product Eligibility and Pricing Engine, an add-on module for its origination platform.The module passes product and pricing information from a lending institution's secondary marketing department to the point-of-sale, which NetUpdate says will increase profitability and decrease costs. By entering a small set of a borrower's loan information into Originator Pro, a loan officer can immediately access a list of programs from which the borrower is eligible or ineligible based on the entered search criteria. The companies can be found online at http://www.netupdate.com and http://www.sollen.com.

American Home Mortgage Holdings Inc., New York, has signed an exclusive agreement with Forbes.com to launch a co-branded online mortgage channel via American Home?s MortgageSelect.com online lending subsidiary.Under the agreement, MortgageSelect.com will be integrated into Forbes.com?s Mortgage Center, on the site?s Personal Finance channel, and provide a full online mortgage lending service, American Home said. MortgageSelect.com will be the exclusive residential mortgage provider on Forbes.com. This is the latest in a series of strategic partnerships formed by MortgageSelect.com. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.americanhm.com and http://www.forbes.com.

RealEC Technologies, Santa Ana, Calif., and Myers Internet Inc., San Francisco, have announced an agreement that offers seamless integration for Myers' Internet-connected customers to more than 5,000 service providers who have integrated with the RealEC network platform.Myers' OriginatorNetwork is a back-office portal that offers more than 8,000 mortgage originators website management tools, access to marketing, small business services, and the ability to order settlement services electronically. RealEC is designed to facilitate the origination, servicing, and closing of real estate transactions and to enable real estate practitioners to enhance their businesses. Myers, a provider of Internet infrastructure to the mortgage industry, can be found on the Web at http://www.myersinternet.com, and RealEC can be found at http://www.realec.com.

LandSafe, the Plano, Texas-based technology subsidiary of Countrywide Financial Corp., is combining its ValueFinder and Frauditor products into a single report that it will make available at the same price previously charged for one of the products."As AVMs become increasingly important to the lending community for pre-qualifying, HELOCs, second mortgages, and portfolio valuation, LandSafe is keeping pace with the demand for more complete information delivered at the highest possible speed," said Michael Faine, LandSafe's managing director, president, and chief operating officer. The new product will return the value, the uncertainty factor, and public record information on the property and comparable properties provided by ValueFinder, as well as Frauditor red flags for possible inflated value, property-type mismatch, or seller mismatch. The product is available through the LandSafe website or via direct XML integration with the customer's loan origination system. LandSafe's website address is http://www.landsafe.com.

Veros Software, a provider of predictive technology and advanced analytics based in Irvine, Calif., has released the latest version of its VeroValue automated property valuation system.VeroValue 1.6 provides mortgage lenders with new tools such as home value forecasting, online account management, property fitness scoring, and wireless access, the company said. Home value forecasting is provided through analysis of key economic indicators and residential real estate trends, while property fitness scoring combines analysis of the subject property, neighborhood, market conditions, and both micro- and macro-economic conditions, Veros said. In addition, the new version offers a Correlated Confidence Score based on the accuracy of the valuation estimate, scaled from 1 to 100 for ease of integration into automated underwriting systems, the company said. Veros can be found online at http://www.verovalue.com.

VMP Mortgage Forms, St. Cloud, Minn., has announced that it will provide a new identity verification software program to mortgage lenders to help them prevent fraud, money laundering, and financing for terrorists.The program, IDFlag, enables lenders to perform real-time and batch verification of consumer and business application information by checking customer data against many risk-indicating databases, the company said. "The mortgage industry is looking for a comprehensive, yet easy-to-use solution to help curb fraud losses and comply with the requirements of the USA Patriot Act," said Joanne Gaskin, VMP's marketing director. VMP is a Bankers Systems company, which can be found on the Web at http://www.bankerssystems.com.

E-Loan Inc., Dublin, Calif., has introduced Loan Advisor, the latest addition to its family of products offering consumer debt advice.The product helps solve debt-related problems by asking about objectives, credit scores, loan details, and tax information in order to recommend a loan that offers the lowest payments or the lowest after-tax cost, the company said. The recommendation takes into account key parameters such as the loan-to-value ratio, credit, actual closing costs, and available interest rates. "The Loan Advisor helps consumers by weighing all options available to them and providing an unbiased recommendation on the lowest-cost solution for their individual scenario," said Joe Kennedy, president and chief executive officer of E-Loan. "It is, to the best of our knowledge, the most sophisticated debt advice tool ever developed." The company can be found on the Web at http://www.eloan.com.

MERS OnLine, Vienna, Va., has reported the registration of its one millionth loan.MERS OnLine, which was introduced in May 2000, is the Internet-based access point to the MERS System, enabling members to perform all transactions in an online, real-time environment. It was created as an alternative to a client-server based system, eliminating the need to buy proprietary software and licensing agreements when registering loans on the system, MERS said. "One million loans registered on MERS OnLine signifies a growing acceptance by small- to medium-sized lenders of the MERS System," said R.K. Arnold, president and chief executive officer of MERS. MERS can be found on the Internet at http://www.mersinc.org.

Fidelity National Financial Inc., Irvine, Calif., has increased its stake in LendingTree Inc., Charlotte, N.C., by purchasing 1.84 million shares of preferred stock held by a unit of Capital Z Financial Services Partners.This stock can be converted into 2.0 million shares of LendingTree common stock. The price paid was not disclosed. Prior to the deal, FNF held 1.6 million shares of LendingTree common stock. FNF and its affiliates now own 12.4% of the total voting stock in the company. Capital Z remains LendingTree's largest shareholder, owning 15.4% of the voting stock. "We feel that LendingTree is a compelling strategic partner for our comprehensive suite of real estate settlement products and services," said FNF chairman and chief executive William P. Foley II. Capital Z is also a significant shareholder in Aames Financial Corp., the Los Angeles-based subprime lender. LendingTree can be found on the Web at http://www.lendingtree.com.

Finali Corp., Westminster, Colo., has announced an agreement to provide outsourced customer care to First Franklin Financial Corp., a subprime mortgage lender based in San Jose, Calif.The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Under the arrangement, Finali's customer care agents will respond to queries and will be complemented by their netSage Virtual Agent on First Franklin's website. The live agents will provide outbound communication to screen applicants and route them to the appropriate loan officers at First Franklin. "Our industry is booming, and we were looking for an innovative way to increase our capacity to handle increased volume without making significant investments in infrastructure," said First Franklin managing director Carole McCormick. "At First Franklin, we believe we've found a unique offering in Finali's combination of customer service experts with its virtual assistants." The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.finali.com and http://www.first-franklin.com.

LION Inc., Seattle, has formed an alliance with Silver Spring, Md.-based LoanRover Decision Systems that will see LoanRover's subprime decision engine distributed to LION's network of mortgage originators and lenders.LION says its network includes over 6,500 mortgage brokers, 250 lenders, and 20,000 limited members, all of whom will now have access to LoanRover's software. The multilender decision engine will allow broker members of LION's network to submit a file and receive instantly priced, conditional loan approvals from subprime lenders. LION said this move would put the company closer to its goal of providing a turnkey mortgage technology system. LION already offers lead generation, websites, loan search services, and loan processing software. The companies can be found online at http://www.lioncorp.net and http://www.loanrover.com.

Factual Data Corp., Loveland, Colo., has been chosen by Bankers Systems Inc., St. Cloud, Minn., to provide credit services to its ARTA Lending Documentation system clients on an exclusive basis.Together, the two firms will offer the ARTA Lending Credit Bureau Access Module, which will allow ARTA users to order merged credit reports from the main credit bureau repositories using their own repository codes. The new module will allow users to complete the credit application, send the request, and receive the credit information without having to exit from ARTA Lending. The companies did not specify when the new module would be ready for the market. Factual Data's website address is http://www.factualdata.com.

Primedia Inc., a media publishing company, has acquired Boston-based Domania Inc., the struggling technology firm that uses Web-based consumer "bait" to help lenders stave portfolio runoff.Domania, provides home price information to consumers and customer retention services to Countrywide, IndyMac and other lenders, but had come dangerously close to running out of cash. Primedia is a leading targeted content and integrated marketing solutions company in both the consumer and business-to-business sectors, with 2001 sales from continuing businesses of $1.6 billion.

TradeWeb LLC has reported that it has set a new record in trading more than $200 billion in to-be-announced mortgage-backed securities during October.The company said it also set a daily trading volume record during the month when more than $19 billion traded in a single day. TradeWeb can be found on the Web at tradeweb.com.

ABN Amro, Ann Arbor, Mich., has reported that changes to its mortgage.com consumer website in September have let to a 90% increase in loan approvals and a 76% jump in rate locks.The revised website now features dynamic questioning to speed the loan application process, immediate access to credit data, instant loan approvals and rate locks, and information for consumers researching home loan options. The dynamic-questioning feature reduced the number of questions asked of mortgage.com's loan applicants by up to 80% from its previous application process, by asking only those questions that are important for that particular customer, the company said. Garth E. Graham, ABN Amro's senior vice president of electronic commerce, said simplifying the loan application process and the company's OneFee program are keys to the company's online success. ABN Amro's consumer website address is http://www.mortgage.com.